Nigel Stonier was recently named as a favourite songwriter by iconic Oscar nominated writer Neil Gaiman, who described his work as ‘quirky, and literary in all the right ways’.

During the six years since his last solo album, he has not exactly been idle, producing three albums for Thea Gilmore, writing Erin Rocha’s top 40 hit “Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong” and hooking up with some of the established names above as well as producing and developing newer acts such as Radio 2 favourites Katy Lied and The Martin Harley Band.

But the absence from solo activity has not been co-incidental, and the shifting moods and heavily personal feel to “Notes From Overground” are well founded… Stonier lived through the deaths of several family members, a separation then subsequent reconciliation and marriage to Thea Gilmore, and the birth of his first child in 2006.

No wonder then that “Notes From Overground” presents a turbulent but fulfilling journey.

Notes From Overground is co-produced by Nigel with his regular studio collaborator and friend Mike Cave (Charlatans, The Coral, Rox)

The opening “Season Of Thunder” is an angry, edgy paean to the darker global events of the early 21st century, taking a swathe to warmongering politicians, the evangelist right and simultaneously catching consumer culture in its swirl at the same time…

Stonier – who plays most of the instruments on the album – rams the point home with fierce, howling guitar. But even through the darker moments of “Notes From Overground” humour is never far away, and barely has the opening track died before we’re into “Whole Lotta Nothin’ Goin’ On” an acidic but hilarious account of a music industry party.

The album moves swiftly through some lived-in love songs (including the glorious “Man Overboard” which with its ringing Rickenbacker 12 string sounds like the comeback hit The Searchers never managed) and the witty “Nearly Man” but ultimately resolves in a suite of personal songs for which Stonier settles on his acoustic guitar and strips things down to a minimum, complementing his intimate vocal style with viola and harmonium.

“Lamplighter’s Song” is an understated but chilling jotting on bereavement and life cycles, then “Girl Sailing” anticipates impending fatherhood with a mix of elated anticipation and peculiarly male fear.

“Set You Free” is an understated guitar/harmonica salute to a newly arrived child and the closing “Union Street” sees Stonier celebrating re-marriage and new beginnings with the combination of honesty and dry wit which have marked his lyric writing down the years and over the course of this album.

With “Notes From Overground” Nigel Stonier rises above comfortable stereotyping, finds a rich vein of writing form – and free of the long list of special guest musicians who have contributed to his last two records, lyrically and instrumentally presents a unified and personalised vision, a set of very grown-up musings about life, love and even death — which may feel mature and lived in but are never complacent or trite. His step out of the shadows is a welcome one.

“Magnetic North” is Hales’ first album of all new material since he relocated from England to sunny Los Angeles last fall. A song snippet, “California,” foreshadowed his new home. “When that song was written, it still just represented somewhere else, something else better. It was New Year’s Eve 2008 when my wife Kim [Oliver] and I decided it was time for a change.”

“Magnetic North” is a glorious celebration of smart pop music. Led by Hales’ exquisite keyboard-based melodies, the album’s 12 songs revel in impossibly upbeat joy, such as the Beck-like opening track, “New Friend” and the unabashedly, uncynical “Fingertip,” and just as surely drown in the bleak sorrow of “Sundowning” or layered, grand majesty of “Time Moves Slow.” The chugging, percussive “Hummingbird” exalts in the force majeure of Hales’ 2-year old daughter. In their own way, each song sweeps the listener up in its arms and takes him or her on a musical journey.

The album includes many guests including Sara Bareilles on the haunting “Remember Us” and “New Friend,” as well as A Fine Frenzy’s Alison Sudol on “Time Moves Slow,” and Kelly Sweet on “Fingertip” and “Sundowning.”

“The thing that I noticed is that in so many of these songs, there are really two protagonists and it’s a couple. It doesn’t have to be a man and a woman, but it made an awful lot of sense for there to be two vocalists,” Hales says. “I didn’t realize how well it was going to work.”

Hales recorded “Magnetic North” over a five-day period at his home studio, The Box (named so because it’s as big as a cardboard box, he jokes) and at The Bank, a friend’s studio in Burbank. The core musicians were Hales, his brother and drummer/percussionist David Price.